Melitopol

Melitopol

It was the Jews who came from the northern regions of Ukraine, as well as from Belarus and the Baltics. The total number of Jews in 1838 was 128 people 3% of the total population of cities. and in 1897 reached 6,503 people (42.4%).

Melitopol was founded on the banks of the Molochnaya River in south-eastern Ukraine in 1842. The settlement of the region took place slowly by different nations and ethnic groups in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

At the beginning of the 19th centur in Melitopol the "first industrialization" was actively going on - agricultural machinebuilding plants appeared. The most famous were the factories of the Jews Lieberman and Korshunov, Zaferman.

The Jews also owned numerous workshops: Gorelik, Lecker, Schlop, and Goldenberg. Printing houses: Lieberman, Lifshitz, Lempert. Photo studio: Zinkivsky, Kivatsitsky, Lioznov.

Bookstores: Rosenstein, Lesman, Lifshitz, Bahrach. In 1850 the first synagogue was built, and Hirsch Itskovych Lyubych became its rabbi.

In addition to the synagogue, the Beit Yakov House of Prayer was built in the city. The Jewish education system included the Heders and the TalmudToru.

Jewish youth actively participated in the public life of the city. Thanks to them, the Gehalutz movement was born in the city. By 1912, the Jewish population of Melitopol was 5,000 people - 23% of the total population. With the introduction of the registry office in the 20s of the twentieth century. the rabbinical institute was abolished, and Melamed was soon banned from teaching.

The Talmud-Torah was turned into a Jewish labor school. By the end of the 1920s, a synagogue was closed in the city "at the request of the workers." As a result of the famine of 1922-1923, the number of Jews in the city decreased from 13,180 to 7,300.

By 1941, the Jewish population was about 8,000.

And then the war began...